Tag Archives: anger

Yes of course, right now our mind is completely gone rigid. Our mind is gone totally wild. Even for one moment, maybe one moment you can but even for maybe three minutes you cannot concentrate on anything. But the beauty of the mind is, it’s trainable. You know this thing that we have, this thing that we call desire, anger, jealousy, all of these, we got these things because we train ourselves to have it this way. It is a training, desire, we just got trained this way and we become an expert in it at the moment. That is all there is, desire, anger, all of this. Depression, excitement, not so well trained for that one, the excitement, happiness, not so.

We have anger, passion and ignorance. Ignorance, passion and aggression, these three emotions are kind of – of course they are not good of course. You know within the five emotions, ignorance, passion, aggression, jealousy and pride, if you were to ask me, which out of this five which is the worst. I my own experience, the ignorance, passion and aggression is, you know I don’t mind them so much. Because with the passion you can get things done, you can read, because of the passion. Aggression also get things done. Ignorance is kind of naive and kind of stupid so it is okay. But there are two loser emotions. Pride and jealousy. They are such a loser. You gain nothing out of being jealous, or you gain nothing out of having so much pride. Pride. When you have pride, with the pride, you perception is different, so different. I cannot finish even talking about it. Someone who has so much pride, because of the pride, you can’t even have a good date, you know dating. Because of the pride. Have you experienced this? Because you are dating with this new friend. And because of your pride you don’t want to be the one who breaks the ice first. You wait until the other person talks, isn’t it. Pride, because of the pride, you know pride makes you so fragile. More pride you are, easier to get hurt. And because of your pride your world is so limited, your perception, your perception of the world has become so limited. You don’t make friends. You make yourself very limited. Jealousy is another continuous paranoia. So much, as we were talking about earlier, so much story you write because of the jealousy. So much imagination. All of these is created by jealousy.

I am sure many of you have seen this painting, wheel of life, sidpai korlo we call it. Okay. In fact in the future if your non Buddhist friend asks you what is the definition of life according to Buddhism what you should do is go to a book shop and buy this painting and show. This is it. This is the description or a definition of life according to Buddhism. Okay. Just briefly, in the center you see a pig, a bird, and a snake which represents ignorance, passion and aggression. Which is the delusion that we have. Now these three then perceive, when you have ignorance, passion and aggression then everything you see is impure. It is like you are looking at a snow mountain, white snow mountain. But you are wearing a blue, red and an orange sun glass on the top of each other. And then you look at the snow and that snow is not white. You see a purplish kind of snow. So if you ask, whether the snow is purple, of course not. How come you see it purple. Because you see it wearing three layers of sun glass. That is why all you vision or perception is altered, manipulated. So to begin with we already have three sun glass, snake sun glass, bird sun glass, and then the – what was it the other – pig, right. Out of these three, as you see things, you see five realms, five or six realms. So hell realm, hell, hungry ghost, animal, good, asura, human. These are the six realms that you are experience or you perceive. Let’s stick with our language here. Okay this is a snang sum teaching so we should use the same language I guess. So that is the perception you get, that is the perception you end up with. Right at the outside, we see a big monster, clutching, holding the wheel of life. This monster actually represents time, time. Time is like a monster it is changing. Time means change of course. If everything is not changing that means freeze. Then there is no past time, no present time, no future time. And we like time. At the time we hate the time. It is a monster, it is really a monster. Okay all this perception are subject to time, all this perception are subject to time. Meaning our perception are going to change all the time, all the time. Of course some takes longer than the other but no perception ever last forever.

According to Buddhism, the fundamental root of all the pain and the suffering that we have is because of clinging to dualism. You can say dualism is like equal to, I think the Christians talk about Satan, something evil. In Buddhism, dualism is the evil. So evil or negative force does not exist outside. As you long as you have the dualistic mind or dualistic distinctions, you will always have a comparison. Therefore dualism is like the source of the insecurity. Dualism creates the insecurity. It is dualism, it is the dualistic mind, that which we call pride. It is the dualism, that which we call anger, aggression, jealousy, passion, greed. All these emotions are basically a dualistic mind that has become so out of control.

When we meditate, sitting like twenty minutes of doing nothing, just sitting. We didn’t do even all the rest of the three mindfulness. We were just doing the body. Just sitting. What are we doing? We are, the moment the insecurity hits you, instead of putting on a fashion, I don’t know, combing your hair, what are we doing? We do nothing. We refrain doing those things, we retreat ourself doing these things. Basically we just sit. Like Shantideva said, like a ???, piece of wood basically. Like, you just sit. Okay, all this lifetimes, the moment insecurity hits you, you have learned one trick which is respond to it. Either bad way or good way, you have learned that trick. In the ???, you do the opposite. The moment insecurity hits you, you do nothing, neither good nor bad. You just sit. What does it do. It actually sends a message to your mind, and your mind gets really puzzled. Because in the past, your mind wants something, and then you deliver, you try to deliver anyway. You think of something good, bad, whatever. It’s bit like this, it’s bit like – this is maybe not the best example – let’s say there is a battery, there is a battery. And this battery gets charged every time you touch this a little bit. The battery gets charged. It doesn’t matter how you touch, whether you touch stroke, gently, or you hit it. It doesn’t matter. Both way it charges. Just like that, our insecurity, our emotions are just like that battery. Now how do you want this battery to be worn out. Don’t do anything, then it slowly – it has to survive on its own energy and it has to spend its own energy so it exhausts. In the past, when the emotion arise, you poke it, you alter it, you try to do something. As an ordinary human being, you actual get into the anger, jealousy, pride. Of course that is very much touching this battery. As a Buddhist you try to pray, you try to sort of think it is bad. I shouldn’t do this. This is also a gentle way of touching but nevertheless it is a touching. What do you do now. You don’t do anything. You just let it be. When you let this be, then it exhaust its own energy. What does this do. It sends a very specific signal to this insecurity. Its actually making this insecurity or this self face the reality, face the truth. It really forces it to face the truth. And once you faith the truth, you will be very very surprised. You will be like – let’s say you actually experience falling from a cliff. And you just manage to grab hold a dead grass as you are falling. And then you are just hanging there, because of this dead grass. You are just hanging there. And you are so paranoid. Only to find out there is only two inch you are on the earth. There is nowhere to fall. I mean it is really save. The insecurity of the self, clinging to the self, this is what you have to face. And this is what things like mindfulness do, it really forces you.

What you have to do, whatever the thought comes, just watch it. Do not fabricate, just watch. What do we mean by that? If an anger comes – watching it. As it comes. Again, here we have to be careful. Okay, so an anger comes. This is a little subtle, so listen carefully. An anger comes to you. Now that you have heard me saying, you just watch. So you watch. If you label as you watch, if you label “Ah, this is an anger”, you are beginning to grasp. Similarly, if there is a devotion arising in you mind, you just watch. But as soon as you are beginning to label it, then you are already grasping. So of course I don’t have to mention when the anger comes, if you think “Oh this is really bad, this is a negative thought, I have to get rid of it”, of course you are already grasping then. If a love and compassion comes and at that point you are so happy, you get so excited, you try to cultivate it, you try to remember it, you try to really look at it. Of course you are grasping already.
So what do you do? What is non-grasping? Whatever the thought comes, watching it, watching it, again and again. Many many examples. Like small children looking at paintings, wall paintings, you are supposed to look at it. Without any distinctions, without making any fabrication. Just watch. That, what does that do? That is slowly, slowly establishing the normality I was talking earlier. Because as soon as you grasp, then you are not letting it be. As soon as you grasp and you alter, you label, then you are poking it. As soon as you are poking it it will change. And then it will change its color, shape and all of that and when it changes its color and shape you will get attracted to it because it is a story, there is a story then. Then you get more and more entangled with the story and then – you know for the meditators, twenty minutes gone by, you are still in the story, forty minutes gone by, you are still in the story. For none meditators, for the ordinary people, not only twenty minutes they have been going, life time after life time, they finish one story, they go to another, with another story.

Basically it is this. Talking about mindfulness. You know, anger comes. Okay, anger comes, and this is the problem. Anger is the problem. So there is a way to fight with this. One is seeing the fault of the anger. You think and think and how bad it is, how it creates problems, how it destroys the world, all of that angle. That is one way. Another way, this I am stealing from Jamghon Kongtrul Lodro Thaye by the way, I better say this things. The other way is promoting the enemy of the anger, which is love and compassion. And we try to really think about love and compassion, talk about it, praise and read it, you know rap shoulder with people who have love and compassion. Whatever it takes basically. So you have two. There is another one good way, really good way, but difficult for the beginners, which is when the anger comes admitting it and really knowing it. That actually is the most economically, user friendly, what you call it, compact, very compact method. But this is difficult, very difficult, because we don’t have the habit of not doing anything. The moment the problem comes – this is why the shamata, shamata is one of the greatest method of not doing anything. You are just supposed to not do anything. Because if you do something – this is what Saraha said – if you do something you are stirring the muddy water. If you stir more it will become more. This is also the word ???, not doing anything basically. Just knowing. But this is difficult, this is very difficult. Not easy. Because mind has, our habit has so much tricks, it has learned lots of tricks. What it does, okay anger comes, okay anger is coming, and then you know. The moment you know you think: “Ah I know.” Right, “ah I know”, but that “ah I know” is actually, has already stolen your mindfulness. Because there is this ah, we call it sense of victory, you have been defeated by your sense of victory basically.